you’re so precious.” She sighs as I grab a chocolate-dipped spoon and mush all the whipped cream and sprinkles down into the hot liquid. “I once had to read a ransom letter on camera for a Columbian drug lord that was written by his brother-in-law who had an unfortunate hand tremor, due to the knife that was sticking out of his hand while he wrote the ransom letter. Your penmanship was a piece of cake; trust me. Eugene is a good man, and a good man should have a cashmere sweater from Neiman Marcus. Don’t worry. The $1,500 extra I spent is my gift to you. Help me help you help Eugene this Christmas, Barb.”
With a nod and a confused look on her face, Barb takes the gift box and heads into the living room toward the stairs to go up to the rooms, and hopefully nowhere near wherever Sheldon disappeared to while thoughts of sugar plums and skull-drilling dance in his head.
“You have got to stop buying people what you think they should want, instead of what they actually want,” Allie reminds her as Millie waves her away with one perfectly manicured hand.
The two of them bicker back and forth for a few minutes, and it makes me miss my friends. Not enough to get in the rental and head right back to Summersweet or anything, but enough to make me wish they were here for just a second.
Allie stops arguing with Millie long enough to tell me there’s still breakfast food left in the warming trays in the dining room if I want to help myself before she clears everything away and gets ready for lunch. I head through the archway, sipping my hot chocolate as I go, shaking my head and smiling when I glance out the windows to see Bodhi and Jason putting the finishing touches on their giant snowman that is taller than the two of them, before setting my Jack Skellington mug down on an empty table in the middle of the room.
The dining room is as overly decorated as the rest of the house I’ve seen so far, with several small round tables covered in red-and-green tablecloths and mini pine tree centerpieces set up to look like a small restaurant. I grab a plate from the stack at the end of the long table against the far wall and fill it with scrambled eggs, bacon, sausage, shredded hash browns, a pancake, and some fresh fruit before heading back to my table and digging in. I’m suddenly starving even though I ate almost an entire grocery store junk food aisle no more than a half hour ago.
By the time my plate is empty after one more trip to the breakfast buffet, and I’m happy I had the good sense to put on stretchy pants when I got out of the shower, Bodhi is coming in from his playtime in the snow. He jogs into the dining room as soon as he walks through the front door and sees me sitting in here.
With a ridiculous squeal that makes me glad we’re the only ones in this room as Bodhi nuzzles his freezing-cold nose into the side of my neck, I swat his cold face away until he moves back. He grabs my cheeks with his mitten-covered hands and pulls me in for a quick peck on the lips before flopping down into the chair next to me.
“What’d ya eat for breakfast?” Bodhi nods to my empty plate as I shake my head at his red shirt with a green pot leaf in the middle that says Merry Cannabis.
“The usual.”
“The souls of your enemies? Must be a new menu item Allie added after I ate.” He smiles.
“It was a special.” I shrug.
Bodhi’s smile grows wider, making my heart flutter like it always does when I can see his dimples, as he pulls his mittens off and tosses them onto the table before leaning closer to me to rest his elbows on his bent knees.
“I’ve got a surprise for you.”
“You know I hate surprises,” I remind him, finishing off the glass of orange juice Allie brought out for me after I filled my plate the first time.
“I know. Ever since that one time a girl from your high school shit her pants in front of the entire school when her parents threw her a surprise birthday party.”
“She’s thirty years old, has three kids, and is the CEO of a major corporation, and everyone still calls her Poo-Poo